This whole £9000 tuition fees thing started as a "only in exceptional circumstances" argument.<p>I hope parents do their studying before they go £27000 in debt to send their children to a really bad institution. There is a ton of other more educating things that you can do with that amount of money: have private lessons, travel around the world, try set up a company, etc etc. (Now, obviously, while you can be a programmer without a degree, I guess some other jobs definitely need a university-like place for people to attend (law, being one of the subjects). But you get my point..)